Buddha

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."

"He is able who thinks he is able."

"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell."

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. "

"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills."

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. "

"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him."

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. "

"What we think, we become."

Karoshi

I have been working so much this week that I am beginning to understand the meaning of death-by-overwork. On the other hand the year is coming to an end, so using Dilbert's words, "It looks like I'll be exaggerating my accomplishments again this year."
Usually, I do not like Christmas. It is quite a stressfull time of the year for me. Family obligations, compulsive shopping, gift selections, overeating, overdrinking, overspending, are not some of my favorite ways to occupy my time, but I mostly dread having to conclude that this year has also been a wasted year, professionally speaking, for me. As I make plans to leave this banana dictatorship where I am stuck, I am reminded of John Lennon's immortal words : "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." Hopefully, by June of next year, I will be on my way to a "sunny" new home in Canada.
Today, I have been suffering from information overload. Among the many subjects I have been reading about, some are more prominent than the others:

• Mezzanine Funding
• Milan Kundera
• Device-Agnostic
• Irritable Male Syndrome
• Game Theory
• Prisoner's dilemma
• Wordpress
• Jimmy Wales
• Richard Linklater
• Boxing Day
• Life Coaching
• Festivus
• Climatique
• Scott Adams
• Before Sunset
• Before Sunrise
• Julie Delpy
• Aliyah
• Yerida

This is not a decent way to spend the holidays.

Avian Influenza

These last few months we have been bombarded with alarmist warnings about avian influenza while a much scarier virus has already spread among us: affluenza.

"Our society is more troubled by problems of overabundance. We are three times richer than in the 1950s, and diseases particular to "affluenza" clog our social and individual arteries. We are more overworked, more stressed, more depressed and much fatter. ...
Critiques of affluenza go deeper than puritanical dismay at the aggressive vulgarity of materialism. The centrepiece of the argument is that we are obsessed privately with more income and better goods, and collectively with "growth" and "progress". Yet all the scholarly work on well-being shows that after passing a benchmark of real deprivation, greater prosperity does not lead to increased happiness."
—Anne Manne, "Sell Your Soul And Spend, Spend, Spend," Syndey Morning Herald, April 14, 2003

I had been thinking about writing a post to illustrate my conflicting emotions about money, until I saw my own views reflected in a great article about plutophobia . I would not be able to explain this "disorder" any better than the author does, so I will just leave the link posted for future reference.

Mortimer Adler

"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live. "

This quote from American philosopher Mortimer Adler has always attracted my attention, more so now that I am entering my fourth decade in life and early signs of physical decay are constant reminders of my mortality. A question that has always troubled me is what is worse, as one ages, physical or mental decline. As I watch my parents and my uncles get older, some have tended to develop serious physical ailments while maintaining excellent mental acuity and others seem to go down the hill mentally while physically in top shape.

Changing the subject, while reading recently about Bojangles, I came across a fascinating word, copasetic, that was a favorite of this American entertainer. I must confess that I had never heard nor used it before, but I do find it quite melodic and not without a certain charm.

As a recovering GAD patient, I have developed quite a low tolerance for adrenaline, and feel quite uncomfortable when I sense high doses of this hormone running through my veins. Lately I have been trying to live a life devoid of it, surrounded by my three comforting companions : Serenity, Equanimity, and Imperturbability. In one word, Ataraxis.

Staying on this subject I have always loved the following quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances".

I come from a family of hotheads where one shoots one's mouth off first and asks questions later. Most of us are ticking time bombs with extremely short fuses. Genetically, we were born doomed, or so I thought. Happily for me, at least, this is a thing of the past, as I have acquired new habits and gone through a monumental paradigm shift. (aren´t all paradigm shifts monumental ?).

Yesterday, I came across a fascinating website about personal development run by Steve Pavlina . I suspect I will be spending much time exploring it.

The darkest hour is just before dawn

This week my sister came to visit us from Belgium. We had not seen her since early May. She is still hooked on smoking, which is probably one of the dirtiest habits one can acquire. It is, I guess, her way of coping with stressful situations. I go to group therapy, she binges on nicotine.